1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device and a method for mutually aligning bodies. In particular, the invention relates to the parallel alignment of shafts, rollers and similar rotationally symmetric bodies.
2. Description of Related Art
A method and device of the type to which the present invention is directed are known from published German Patent Application DE 195 46 405. That application contains a description of how angle data are obtained using, for example, a fibre-optic gyroscope having a position-measuring sensor. This makes it possible to determine, on the basis of the angle data, whether, and where appropriate, which position corrections need to be undertaken on bodies, specifically on shafts or rollers, which are to be aligned, in order to bring these into a desired state of alignment. For this purpose, it is necessary to apply the mentioned position-measuring sensor in a successively progressive manner, in each instance, to one of the bodies to be aligned. The position-measuring sensor is designed so that it is able to determine the angular position of the body relative to a spatially fixed reference coordinate system. However, for the purposes of the majority of practical applications, it is in this case only necessary that the angular position of the body with respect to the coordinates "azimuth" and "elevation" can be determined by the position-measuring sensor.
In this case, the bodies are, as a rule, to be measured with an accuracy which is within the range of fractions of a degree. In order to achieve such an accuracy, the optical gyroscopes mentioned in German Application DE 195 46 405, which are in accordance with the current prior art must, however, still have a certain overall size. In this case, typical overall sizes are cubic sensors having dimensions of approximately 200 mm.times.200 mm.times.200 mm. For a number of applications, such an overall size proves to be an obstacle, in particular, in the case of rollers of a closely jacketed roller train, or in the case of the rollers of an offset printing machine which are situated closely alongside one another and one above the other. Frequently, the frame-work or the racking for such rollers also obstructs their accessibility, so that the application of a relatively large sensor is associated with difficulties, and smaller sensors do not give the desired accuracy.